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Chapter Twenty-Five

The ruse continues…

T he note had arrived that morning, informing them that the earl had obtained the license and that all was in readiness for the pair of them to be wed at St. George’s Church the following morning. The note, addressed to Marina, had been given to Lord and Lady Deveril after. And it had raised concerns for Willa. It had been so perfunctory. Direct, to the point, and lacking any sort of emotion. But did that very dry note indicate that he lacked emotion? Still, Marina had insisted that he would come to call sometime that day. And given how attentive and present he’d been during the previous week Willa had no cause to doubt that. Except that teatime had already passed and still there was no sign of him.

“Stop worrying!”

Willa looked back at Lillian, and as she realized she’d been pacing the floor, sighed wearily. Returning to her seat, she said, “I’m afraid. I’m so terribly afraid. Though I suppose the time for that has passed. She deserves to be happy.”

“And perhaps she will be, but that is no longer up to you,” Lillian responded sagely. “She is an adult. A grown woman who is now responsible for her own happiness.”

“I do not like this. I understand the need for it, but I do not like it,” Willa said.

Lillian shook her head, her gaze locked on the screen behind which Marina was dressing. “Willa, Marina wants to marry this man. He clearly wants to marry her. Must it be some society event with orange blossoms and gathered guests whom we all secretly despise?”

Willa looked away. “What a wretched sister you are to point out my hypocrisy! I just had never imagined that, when Marina married, it would have to be some rushed and hurried affair. I wanted her to have the sort of wedding that young girls dream of.”

Lillian laughed softly. “It isn’t hypocrisy. You don’t give a fig for how it all looks. Your concern is for her happiness, as it should be. My point in reminding you of our own hasty nuptials is to broach the possibility that, while this isn’t how you pictured it, it may still prove to be precisely what she needs… Not being in love with him now does not preclude loving him in the future.”

The hastiness of the wedding aside, Willa couldn’t find one thing in Lord St. Aiden to which she could object. If she were to be entirely honest, her reluctance had little to do with him and more to do with the fact that Marina’s coming absence from their home was plaguing her. “I know that. And I pray for that outcome. But I do not want her to regret this. I do not want her to feel that she has rushed headlong into this and made a mistake. Not after Stanford.”

Lillian frowned. “Have you ever asked why, Willa?”

Willa frowned, her brows drawing together slightly. “It’s terrible, Lillian. Completely awful. But it isn’t my secret to tell.”

Lillian was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Willa, did you? When you married Devil in an equally hasty manner, did you regret it?”

Willa couldn’t stop the sly smile that curved her lips. “You know I did not. Just as you never once regretted marrying Valentine.”

“Well, momentarily perhaps,” Lillian said with a smirk. “But he tends to redeem himself very well… I think, Willa, that you must accept that Marina is now a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. If she feels that marriage to the Earl of St. Aiden is the right course for her, then we must not disagree. And we must not drive a wedge between her and her family by haranguing her for that decision.”

Willa said nothing more because the door to the drawing room had opened and Marina entered. Dressed in ivory silk embroidered with gold thread and pearls, she was a vision, despite the numerous pins that could be seen here and there. The dress had been made during her first Season when she’d been set to marry Mr. Stanford Williams, and her figure had become more womanly since that time. Still, looking at her in the gown, it was difficult to deny how much she had changed. Marina was not the terrified and silent child she had once soothed and cared for. She was now a woman grown. She was a bride.

Willa felt tears stinging her eyes as she looked at her niece—at the daughter of her heart. “Oh, Marina! You are exquisite. I declare that dress, once the alterations are complete, will be even more stunning on you now than when first commissioned.”

Marina’s answering smile was tight, reflecting her nervousness. “Let’s hope it finally makes it down the aisle this time.”

The gown was the one which had been commissioned for the wedding which had been called off more than two years prior. It had been packed away in a trunk along with much of her remaining trousseau.

“It will. If you wish it to. And if you do not… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Lillian insisted. “Now, you have something old, something borrowed, something blue?”

“Old, new, and blue… but I have nothing borrowed,” Marina answered.

Lillian reached up and plucked a diamond pin from her elegant coiffure. She then tucked it into the mass of Marina’s dark curls, just beneath her veil. “And I presume there is to be a sixpence tucked inside your slipper?”

“Naturally.”

Willa stepped forward, hugging Marina tightly.

“The pins, Lady Deveril! Mind the pins,” Stephens admonished them all.

Immediately, Willa stepped back. “Of course. Let us not be impractical and ruin all this hard work. Not when we still have other tasks to see to. Stephens, please help Marina out of the gown and then have a bit of tea sent up to her room for us. I think we shall need it.”

A knowing look passed between Willa and Lillian, leaving Marina not as entirely in the dark as they no doubt wished to believe. Oh, she didn’t know the particulars of the marriage bed, but she knew enough to understand that she would much rather gather that information through experience than embarrassing and stilted conversation.

Entering her chamber, Willa on her heels, Marina halted. “We do not need to do this. I’ve had enough friends who have gotten married off already that I’m not entirely ignorant.”

With Stephens’s assistance, she removed the gown that would be her wedding dress. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, the loyal retainer all but scurried away with the garment, leaving them alone with her pronouncement hanging between them.

After a moment, Willa cleared her throat lightly. “Well, that is a bit of relief. I confess to not knowing precisely where to begin with such a conversation. That does not mean, of course, that I do not have some sage wisdom to share with you.”

Wearing her chemise and petticoats, Marina donned her wrapper and plopped down on the bench at the foot of her bed. Hugging her arms about her, she nodded to her aunt. “I’m listening.”

“The physical aspect of your marriage is so much more important than most people, especially other ladies, will ever admit. It cannot be the basis of it, of course, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the supports that will shore it up when times are tough. And there will always be times that are tough, my dear. Perhaps not financially, but when your life becomes so entwined with another person’s… well, complications are unavoidable. The intimacy of the marriage bed can often be the thing that will keep you—not together but connected. Because the trick is not falling in love with one’s husband or even staying in love with one’s husband. It’s about developing the capacity for forgiveness that will allow you to fall in love with him over and over again even when he’s been an absolute dolt.”

“Has Uncle Devil been a dolt?”

Willa rolled her eyes heavenward. “Oh, countless times! Countless. But I adore him enough not to hold it against him. It helps that he’s very, very handsome… as is the Earl of St. Aiden.”

Marina felt a blush creeping over her cheeks. “He is quite handsome.”

“And can I presume that there has been a stolen kiss or two?” Willa asked.

“I thought we weren’t going to discuss this!”

Willa laughed. “It isn’t easy for me, you know? I look at you and while I am perfectly aware that you are a woman grown, I still see the little girl who clung to me when she was terrified. To think that you will now be starting a life of your own, with your own children to tend to—I’m overcome by it all a bit.”

“Understandably so,” Marina conceded. “It’s a bit overwhelming for me also. But exciting. I think this might be the first time that I have really felt like the future was full of possibilities. Not since… Well, since Stanford.”

“Did you love him truly?”

“I thought I did,” Marina admitted. It was time to tell the truth. “But after I discovered he had never loved me, I—The realization that the man I had thought myself in love with was simply a work of fiction helped me to understand that it had all been an elaborate illusion. A character he created and played with sublime skill.”

Willa took her hand. “Why did you never say anything? You were hurting so terribly and never asked for help, for support.”

“It was too humiliating… Better to be thought a jilt than to be known for someone who was only sought for their fortune and stupid enough not to see it. I felt so foolish. So unbelievably idiotic. For believing his lies. And when I looked back, I could see all the little tell-tale signs of it that I hadn’t wanted to see before. I couldn’t bear for everyone—including him—to know what a fool I had been. So I ended our engagement, never letting on that I knew what he was about.”

“You devious thing. You let him just think you didn’t want him after all.”

Marina ducked her head. “I did. And, in light of recent events, perhaps I ought to regret it, but I do not.”

“On the contrary. I think it’s divine. Worthy of Lillian, even.”

Marina laughed then. “High praise!”

“It is. Now, I’m off to dress for an early dinner. We’ll all need to seek our beds early tonight. We have a very big day tomorrow and one that will begin quite early… I’d advise you to do the same, lest you have shadows under your eyes.”

Marina smiled in response. “Quite right.”